Police made an arrest this week in a Crook County murder case that has vexed investigators for more than two decades.

George Shadrick Bogan and Thomas Allan Colbert were arrested this week following a two-year investigation by the Oregon State Police and the Grant County District Attorney’s Office. The pair have been charged with the murder of Danny Kaye Sweet, who disappeared from the home he was staying at in Mitchell in October 1992. A pair teenage hikers discovered Sweets skeletal remains near Mt. Vernon in Grant County four years later while the pair was searching for antlers.

However, it took more than a decade and a half for investigators to piece together enough evidence to charge Bogan and Colbert with Sweet’s killing. State police did not immediately disclose what led to the break in the case. However, an OSP press release issued Wednesday afternoon said that Bogan and Colbert were involved in drug trafficking and that Sweet owed drug money to Bogan who was then living in Prineville. A pair of secret indictments that were handed down by a Grant County Grand Jury in early February indicate that Sweet’s killing was a murder for hire with Bogan contracting with Colbert to settle his score with Sweet.

According to Grant County District Attorney Ryan Joslin, police arrested Colbert in Las Vegas on Wednesday at his Indian Springs residence. OSP officers from Bend and Roseburg arrested Bogan during a traffic stop near his home in Roseburg. Both men have been charged with murder and aggravated murder.